BY: B. NNANNA OTUÂ (Lagos Bureau Chief) 
We saw it coming years back. The vituperation and raw outburst of hatred directed on Igbos in Lagos by the likes of Adeyinka Grandson (presently cool off his heels in a London jail for openly calling for genocide against Igbos in Lagos) and M.C. Oluomo -the grand commander of Lagos roughnecks who, flanked by Police officers, made an open threat to ruthlessly deal with any Igboman who dare come out to vote in the 2023 Gubernatorial elections in Lagos State. These threats were all pointers to the grand swell of hatred of Igbos in Lagos.
Delivering his inaugural speech recently, on his assumption of office as a three term Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Hon. Mudashiru Ajayi Obasa announced to bemused Lagos residents that the House was going to tinker with the Lagos State Land Use Act as part of the Lagos for Lagosians initiative. The initiative is a veiled design of a hate and envy induced plot to strip Igbos of their duly acquired and Certificate of Occupancy backed landed properties in Lagos. .
On the Alaba International Electronic Market debacle, (a market adjudged to be the largest Electronic Market in the West Coast of Africa), Innocent Nwankwor wrote “the Almighty God certified that the heart of man is severely entwined in evil thoughts and ways. There will be a thousand of official reasons to give in order to embark on demolitions of Igbo properties especially in Lagos. Today, it is structural defects, blocking waterways or rights of way. All Balderdash! The Yoruba are very smart in inventing alibis”.
The construction and development of the Alaba International market began in 1975. The market was a “throw away concession” to the traders displaced from the old Alaka (Surulere) electronics market. The traders were dispersed as the Government said they will constitute an ugly sight when visitors for the Festac 77 began to arrive. The traders initially went to a location at Orile-Iganmu. They were again dispersed with the same Alaka excuse. Some went to Owode Onirin and Ajegunle ( a little after Ketu.) Along the line, the Ojo Local Government approached the traders and offered them empty but wooded lagoon sites, a little inland after Awori Grammar School. It was a free grant and freehold. The condition was that the traders would sand fill the entire expanses, allocating spaces to themselves. No money was paid. As earlier noted, the area was a wooded lagoon expanse of waste land.
Alaba was sand filled with top soil excavations from the FESTAC Town site. Tipper loads of soil were bought by the traders and they began to fill the area in earnest. The Alaba International Market location was a wasteland. It was never part of any Lagos State development scheme. It was in the backwaters of civilization so to speak. The only specter of human activity around the area was the Awori Grammar School and a couple of houses in which the Local Government operated from. The rest were dense forests populated by varied enormous snakes. Our people tackled and built Alaba in earnest having in focus the likely opportunities the FESTAC Town would offer. FESTAC 77 was approaching with the exquisitely designed buildings springing up in the FESTAC Town. The Ojo Cantonment and the Volkswagen were already in place with supportive population and activities. There was also Navy Officers quarters – an  estate hitherto inhabited by the expatriate engineers of Julius Berger. Another area of human activity was Agbara which has the new Lever Brothers factories, Housing Estates and Cottage factories. Nothing else.
Alaba International Market was initially of matchbox wooden stores. As you are aware, the prosperity and buoyancy of the market attracted the traditional arsonists of Lagos. The market was burnt into cinders. The traders rebuilt, this time using concrete casts and iron doors. As mentioned earlier, the site was granted gratis by the Ojo Local Government. It was far and remote from civilization. A good walk away from humanity you may say. That grant spurred the in-habitation and the development of Ajangbadi, Sibiri, Alaba-Rago, Alaba Oni-Reke and other outlying suburbs started. Alaba International market was the catalyst of these developments. FESTAC 77 boosted the commercial status and veins of the market. Breakaway groups that hovered around Owode and Orile-Iganmu rushed back on time to win plots at areas adjoining the Market. That was how the furniture segment and Northern Traders localities came about.
As noted earlier, that the market site was granted gratis, the site also was the sewage disposal terminal of the FESTAC Town. At that time FESTAC Town had a central sewage treatment and disposal facility. The questions now are: when and how did the Lagos Government come into Alaba to delineate canals, waterways, roads etc? Was there any scrip of infrastructural development of Alaba before the traders were dumped in there? How come, areas beyond Ajangbadi called Igbo-Ejo (Forest of Snakes) which the Igbo traders conquered by putting up residential buildings have now become Government delineated Estates or layouts?
All the theories of collapsing buildings and blocked waterways have failed to point out when Lagos Government became interested and concerned about Alaba. No iota of assistance or supervisory roles came to the traders in sand filling and developing Alaba and the suburbs. It was the usual singular Igbo efforts. Where were the Lagos State Town Planners in designing Alaba? Who approved the structures and collected all the bribes therein? Indeed, Lagos State Government and it’s organs would always have a thousand and one excuses and alibis whenever they want to embark on demolishing Igbo markets and properties. All the shenanigans going on point to one direction that Igbos should commence phased and gradual relocations back to the East. Or on the extreme, take the markets to Accra, Abidjan and Yaounde.
Watch out, today it is Alaba International Market, tomorrow, it will be the turn of Computer Village Ikeja.
